Under Vesuvius(7)

“Easily,” he answered. “This isn’t Rome. We seldom use more than twenty or thirty jurors.”

Roman juries often numbered in the hundreds. Even the richest men found that many difficult to bribe. Not that some didn’t try, and successfully at that.

“It’s a bad law, anyway,” I said. “Any free citizen should be eligible for jury duty.”

“That would lead to anarchy!” said an indignant official. “Only men of property are competent to make legal judgments.” The rest made sounds of agreement. They were all equites, of course.

“We used to say that only men of property could serve in the legions,” I observed. “How many of you have ever shouldered a spear?” They bristled, and Hermes gave me a nudge. I was starting things badly. “Oh, well, what’s up first?”

Most of the cases that morning involved suits brought against foreign businessmen. By law, such men had to have a citizen partner. Usually, it was this partner, or his advocate, who argued on the foreigner’s behalf. Except for an occasional question I had very little part in the proceedings except to listen. I was no legal scholar myself, but on my staff I had several men who were, and these could provide me with any necessary precedents.

Swift justice is the best justice, and I had all but cleared the docket before noon. The last item was the only criminal case of the day: a Greek sailor accused of killing a citizen in a tavern brawl. The man hauled before me in chains was a tough-looking specimen, his dark-tanned skin very little paled by his months in the town’s lockup.

“Name?” I demanded.

“Parmenio,” he said.

“Would you prefer to be tried in Greek?” I asked him in that language.

He seemed surprised at such consideration. “I would.”

One of my lictors smacked him across the back with his fasces. ” ‘I would, sir!’ ” he barked.

“I would, sir. That is very kind of you, sir.”

“Do you have an advocate?”

“Not even a friend, sir.”

“Then will you speak on your own behalf?”

“I will, sir.”

“Very well. Lictor, call up the witnesses.”

A half score of men who had the look of professional idlers came forward and they all told substantially the same story. Upon a particular date they had been carousing in a particular tavern when an argument broke out between this foreign sailor and a citizen. Flying fists had escalated to flying furniture and the citizen had ended up dead on the floor, brained by a weighty, three-legged stool.

“What have you to say for yourself?” I asked the defendant.

“Not much, Praetor. We were playing at knucklebones and I won most of his money. The last roll, he said I threw the Little Dog when anyone could see that I threw Venus. I called him a liar and he called me a boy-humping Greekling. We fought. I did not intend to kill him, but I did not want him to kill me, either. Also, we were both drunk.”

“Admirably succinct,” I told him. “Would that all our lawyers appreciated brevity. This is my decision. The fact that you were drunk is neither here nor there. A self-induced incapacity does not constitute a defense. You have killed a citizen, but you did not lurk in ambush or provide yourself with a weapon in advance, and these facts are in your favor. Also, you have not wasted this court’s time with a windy self-justification and made us all late for lunch and the baths.

“So I will not sentence you to the cross or the arena. I declare this killing to be death by misadventure in a common brawl. For shedding the blood, not to mention the brains, of a citizen and disturbing the public order, I sentence you to five years as a public slave, your owner to be the town of Cumae. Perhaps five years of cleaning the local sewers and gutters will lead you to a more sober, thoughtful life.”

The relief that rolled off the man was all but palpable. The crowd applauded and declared that this was a sterling example of Roman justice at its best. The truth was, homicide was not regarded as a particularly serious crime, as long as poison or magic were not involved, and a killing in a fair fight hardly qualified as murder at all. It was this man’s misfortune that the dead man was a citizen and he was not. No doubt he was already plotting his escape.

I declared the court adjourned and was looking forward to a pleasant afternoon of eating, bathing, and socializing when I noticed a striking man who had stood among the onlookers and now wore an expression of disappointment. He was very tall, with a dark, hawk-featured face and dense, square-cut black beard. He was dressed in a long robe of splendid material, worked with a great deal of gold thread. I sent a lictor to summon him.